[nfbcs] Inaccessiable Training - again

Mon Feb 18 17:12:30 UTC 2013

But it's not true that life is unfair for everyone.  The vast majority 
of people never have to overcome a challenge like blindness.

This was driven home to me a few years ago when I wanted to change jobs. 
Until I went blind, I had never been turned down for a job I'd 
interviewed for. I mean that literally. Since I got my degree, I had 
never been turned down after interviewing for a job. Sometimes I had 
several offers at once but I had never been turned down. The 
discrimination I faced after I went blind came as quite a shock to me. I 
couldn't believe the way most people paid way, way more attention to my 
disability than my resume. One woman outright refused to interview me 
because she didn't believe I could use a computer at all. And that was 
for a job that was, frankly, beneath me. Of course, I just passed that 
woman off as an idiot. But if I had really needed that job, that would 
have hurt.

In my opinion, this lack of empathy those of us who have made it show 
toward those who have not is a huge problem. I think it greatly 
undermines our ability to get anything done. My opinion is that those of 
us who have made it are obligated to try to make it easier for the next 
guy. After all, oour paths were smoothed by those who came before us. I 
can show you messages where I've criticized kenneth Jernigan 
tremendously. I have huge problems with a lot of things he said and did. 
But there is no question that none of us would be where we are without 
him and one heck of a lot of other people like him.

On 2/17/2013 5:59 PM, david hertweck wrote:
> You are 100% correct, but this is true for every one regardless if they
> have a handicap or not.
> Who ever said life is fare or even should be fare.  It is a matter of
> how much do we want to have a job.
> I get what you are saying it makes me very angry when it is such a pain
> to access something that is trivial for a sighted person.
>
> One of the ideas I am playing with is how to show companies how they can
> make a larger profit by making their products accessible.  Requiring
> this by law only gets you so far.
>
> Another idea there seams to be a large amount of talent on this list, if
> some one has an need lets jointly try and solve it.
>
> thanks.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message----- From: John G. Heim
> Sent: Saturday, February 16, 2013 4:12 PM
> To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Inaccessiable Training - again
>
>
> I don't mean to question the value of the advice given below. It's all
> true, of course. But lets not start blaming blind people for
> accessibility problems. The truth is that to compete against sighted
> people, you often have to be even more mentally tough and work harder
> than they do. But lets face it, that's not really fair.
> And there is another side to this, you can do everything right and still
> fail. You might work your tail off establishing a career and then if the
> vendors of technology products you use make them inaccessible, well you
> are screwed.
>
> I would never question the value of tips on how a blind person can be
> the perfect employee. That is one necessary ingredient in building a
> successful career. You can't succeed without doing the thngs listed
> below. But they don't guarantee success.
>
>
>
> On Feb 15, 2013, at 8:07 PM, Gabe Vega Via Iphone4S wrote:
>
>> Hell yeah! This post states everything I think. And I believe this is
>> what blind people forget all the time. Maybe you all should read this
>> over and over and over again. Thank you for this post.
>>
>> Gabe Vega
>> Sent from my iPhone
>> (623) 565-9357
>>
>> On Feb 15, 2013, at 6:45 PM, "david hertweck"
>> <david.hertweck at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>
>>> As a blind engineer and now a manager working for a large company I
>>> found the best approach is:
>>> 1. Try and find a way to do your job, be creative, think out of the
>>> box, make it work.
>>> 2. Put in extra hours.  I know a lot of sighted engineers if they are
>>> not as effective as other people they put in the extra time so we
>>> should be willing to do this.
>>> 3. Remember everyone has tasks to complete and completing yours can
>>> not interfere with others.
>>> 4. Before asking for help have an exact plan for how can that person
>>> help you.  What does not work is to ask someone to make "X"
>>> accessible for you.
>>> 5. Never "complain" find answers. It is super to "complain" in this
>>> forum but not at work.
>>> 6. Always remember your manager most likely has more work and
>>> certainly more responsibilities than you do, so you should never add
>>> to them for accessibility problems.
>>> 7. Always remember you are there for the company not the company for
>>> you.
>>>
>>> thanks
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> through out my work life
>>> and now as a manager of course they are not overwellming
>>>
>>> -----Original Message----- From: majolls at cox.net
>>> Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2013 10:50 AM
>>> To: nfbcs at nfbnet.org
>>> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Inaccessiable Training - again
>>>
>>> Gary and all
>>>
>>> I think you hit the nail on the head.  To what end do you
>>> "complain"?  If you don't, you don't get anywhere.  And if you do
>>> (too much) you are perceived as a burden ... and managers would
>>> rather not deal with you and get someone else that doesn't have the
>>> requirement that you do.  I work for a large corporation.  I found
>>> that while managers can be sympathetic, others just don't care.  it
>>> really depends on your luck of the draw regarding what manager you do
>>> get.
>>>
>>> I can remember voicing concern about sitting in a large room for a
>>> presentation where they had big monitors up on the wall.  A presenter
>>> would be running his demo, and the display was up on the "big
>>> screen". Unfortunately, I couldn't read the big screen.  I was just
>>> too far away and I'm just too blind.  When I voiced concern, what I
>>> mostly got was "just do your best" ... which was absolutely no help.
>>> I finally came up with the idea ... "just run a data feed to a
>>> separate monitor that can be placed on a table that I can sit close
>>> to".  That idea really worked, but it took me ... not them ... to
>>> come up with the idea.  The managers ... who are supposed to help you
>>> ... didn't have a clue what I needed, or what might work.  And, if I
>>> complained too much, they just said ... "do your best" and sort of
>>> turned a deaf ear.
>>>
>>> And as far as going to bat for you ... trying to get the application
>>> changed so it's accessible ... I think most managers have priorities
>>> on what they have to get done.  When you require someone to sit with
>>> you (meaning time and money) or when you ask your manager to help you
>>> ... they'll do it as long as it isn't excessive ... meaning as long
>>> as it doesn't take a lot of time and money.  If it does, you're kind
>>> of on your own.  And as far as them modifying software to be
>>> accessible ... that's only an option if your company doesn't have a
>>> lot of other "business requirements" they have to get done first.
>>> Where I'm at, that's always the case.
>>>
>>> I guess we all just need to be experts on Accessibility programming
>>> so we can do it ourselves.  Wish I had better things to say, but I've
>>> only had 35 years of experience in dealing with this.  And it doesn't
>>> sound like the federal government is any better than private
>>> industry.  People (managers) are people no matter where you go I
>>> suppose.
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>
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>
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